JEFFERSON & ADAMS – 50 years after the Declaration of Independence – they died on the SAME DAY, July 4, 1826

Both served in the Continental Congress.

Both signed the Declaration of Independence.

Both served as U.S. Ministers in France.

Both were U.S. Presidents, one elected the 2nd President and the other the 3rd … continue reading …

Download as PDF …

An awe swept America when they both died on the same day, JULY 4, 1826, exactly 50 years since they approved the Declaration of Independence.

The Broadway musical 1776 even has a scene portraying their disagreement over the spelling.

“that which cannot be given away or taken away.”

“Since your last meeting at this place, the 50th anniversary of the day when our independence was declared …

two of the principal actors in that solemn scene — the HAND that penned the ever-memorable Declaration and the VOICE that sustained it in debate —

were by one summons, at the distance of 700 miles from each other, called before the Judge of All to account for their deeds done upon earth.”

“A coincidence … so wonderful gives confidence … that the patriotic efforts of these … men were Heaven directed, and furnishes a new … hope that the prosperity of these States is under the special protection of a kind Providence.”

“But the concurrence of their death on the anniversary of Independence has naturally awakened stronger emotions.

Both had been President, both had lived to great age, both were early patriots, and both were distinguished and ever honored by their immediate agency in the act of independence.

It cannot but seem striking and extraordinary, that these two should live to see the fiftieth year from the date of that act that they should complete that year and that then, on the day which had fast linked forever their own fame with their country’s glory, the heavens should open to receive them both at once.

As their lives themselves were the gifts of Providence, who is not willing to recognize in their happy termination, as well as in their long continuance, proofs that our country and its benefactors are objects of His care?”

“Before God, I believe the hour has come …

All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it …

“Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.

The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue,

and if this cannot be inspired into our People … they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.”

“Have you ever found in history, one single example of a nation thoroughly corrupted that was afterwards restored to virtue? … And without virtue, there can be no political liberty …

Will you tell me how to prevent luxury from producing effeminacy, intoxication, extravagance, vice and folly? … No effort in favor of virtue is lost.”

“God who gave us life gave us liberty.

Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?

Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

“Almighty God hath created the mind free …

All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens … are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion …

“I do not know how to prove physically, that we shall meet and know each other in a future state; nor does Revelation, as I can find, give us any positive assurance of such a felicity.

My reasons for believing it, as I do most undoubtedly, are that I cannot conceive such a Being could make such a species as the human, merely to live and die on this earth.

If I did not believe in a future state, I should believe in no God. This Universe, this all would appear, with all of its swelling pomp, a boyish firework.

And if there be a future state, why should the Almighty dissolve forever all the tender ties which unite us so delightfully in this world, and forbid us to see each other in the next?”

“It is of some comfort to us both that the term is not very distant at which we are to deposit, in the same cerement, our sorrows and suffering bodies,

and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved & lost and whom we shall still love and never lose again.”

“The pillar of the Declaration’s support on the floor of Congress, its ablest advocate and defender.”

“Thank God, Jefferson lives!”

“The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them.”

the Declaration of Independence, 1926:

“The principles … which went into the Declaration of Independence … are found in … the sermons … of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live.

They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man …

They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image …

This preaching reached the neighborhood of Thomas Jefferson, who acknowledged that his ‘best ideas of democracy’ had been secured at church meetings.”

James Monroe stated in his Eighth Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1824

“For these blessings we owe to Almighty God, from whom we derive them, and with profound reverence, our most grateful and unceasing acknowledgments …

Having commenced my service in early youth, and continued it since with few and short intervals, I have witnessed the great difficulties to which our Union has been exposed, and admired the virtue and intelligence with which they have been surmounted …

That these blessings may be preserved and perpetuated will be the object of my fervent and unceasing prayers to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.”

Download as PDF …

Read as American Minute post

Silence Equals Consent – the sin of omission: Speak Now or Forever Lose Your Freedom